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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29223990">Pulling At the Link</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/volpeanon/pseuds/volpeanon'>volpeanon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dishonored (Video Games), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, Low Chaos Daud (Dishonored), and rectified, briefly mentioned misgendering, but just to warn ya, daud is trans dad and billie is his beautiful trans daughter that's how it is, daud's past, dlc events, listen, not the focus of the piece but part of it, so nothing nasty, some slightly more protracted misgendering but it's an accident on the character's part, trans Billie Lurk, trans Daud</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:01:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,587</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29223990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/volpeanon/pseuds/volpeanon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>To change is not passive. To change requires effort. To change requires a battle against the easy path, the person you were yesterday, the you who would rather that things stayed the same. Daud made a decision that he would change; but his dæmon did not.</p><p>Or: Daud's soul takes the form of a bitchy cat who likes the murder and thinks he's being overdramatic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daud &amp; Billie Lurk | Meagan Foster, Daud &amp; himself (technically)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pulling At the Link</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello I am back on my bullshit, . A dæmon's just your soul, but it lives outside your body and shapeshifts until about adolescence when it settles into an animal form that describes you. It can't go more than a few feet from you in most cases. Canonically men's dæmons are female and women's male and sometimes they're the same sex as their person - and non canonically I say that that means that the person is trans but not out yet, Yes This Is The Hill I Will DIE On.</p><p>But by the way, if you really want to see Billie's dæmon, look up 'neither sea nor shore' by iridan here on AO3 bc that just gets it, nails it, absolute perfection, as close to canon as an AU can be to be quite frank with you.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He had been in the Void again; she could always tell. A weak, grey dawn showed through the broken roof, and his rough blanket tangled his legs, and he was cold, and damp.</p><p>“What did he say?” She asked, her whiskers tickling his side where his shirt had ridden up and her warm fur pressed against his skin. He didn’t reply. He felt her small chin rest on him after a while, with her tail flicking under the blanket. “What is it?”</p><p>“A name.”</p><p>“The Outsider’s giving contracts now?”</p><p>The Empress’s body had looked stark in the Void, leaking blood onto the sheets they tried to cover her with. “Who knows.”</p><p>Distantly, a ship’s horn sounded. It was too early yet for the gulls. Outside of Dunwall, robins would be singing in the cold air and the gloom, like they did in his half-gone memories. His mother's face was hazy; he saw only the shape of her, her dark hair falling in front of her eyes.</p><p>"He said something else." Kaikilia would be staring at him through the dark if he cared to look, just yellow eyes afloat in black fur that blended seamlessly into the darkness.</p><p>"Just a name."</p><p>"Well?"</p><p>"Delilah."</p><p>"... We don't know any Delilahs."</p><p>"No."</p><p>"What's it about?"</p><p>"I don't know."</p><p>One of her paws, tucked just under him, flexed its claws, pricking him with their needle points. <em> "What?" </em></p><p>“You know as much as I do.” He lied. He could feel her gaze on him, but in the end she left him to brood, pawing the blanket up to cover herself and curling back into a ball. He felt the blurred edge to his mind as she fell asleep, but it didn’t drag him under. She was content; he was not. The dreams didn't come to her as they did him.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “If this is not to your liking, Woolsey,” Sokolov levered the gleaming utensil with a meaty cracking sound, and the young man who had been getting progressively more grey as the lecture went on made a noise between a gag and a whimper. Daud watched with ease born of familiarity; his mother had shown him how to carve rabbits before he had ever taken a knife to a man. “Then I suggest you find another profession and leave space in this hall for those who will actually benefit from my teaching.” The physician levered again, and the bone in the corpse’s propped-up leg finally gave. The young Woolsey was gripping the bannister behind him in white-knuckled fists, his raccoon dæmon trying desperately to prop him up from atop it. “As a woman of questionable wisdom but great words once said, the bull was made to eat grass, but the lion not. Get out before you faint and I make an example of you.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Later, as they left the hall, passing the doubled over Woolsey and some of his sympathetic friends, Daud let his own dæmon leap lightly into his arms. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “The bull was made to eat grass, but the lion not.” She said, climbing up onto his shoulders under his hood. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I thought you didn’t like Sokolov.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I don’t. It’s a good phrase, though.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Ego homini leo?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “If I was up my own ass, I’d be a lion. But what decides that lions eat bulls and bulls eat grass? It's like mother's stories; things find a balance, predator comes for prey; when there are too many fish, seals come, and when there are too many seals, orca. It's a calling. It's in our nature." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I suppose." He slid into an alleyway just past the grand archway of the academy’s gatehouse. "You're a cat, after all." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I was always going to be a cat." She rubbed her cheek to his with a purr. "We were taken because they could already see it. I wouldn't have let them decide." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He reached up and pressed her small head tight against his face, feeling the vibration in her body. "I know." </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"I saw it on a ledger, as I was passing. Pretty convenient." Billie slid the torn page across the desk towards him. The lists of ships, their names and numbers and purpose, sprawled across the slightly water-stained paper. "Is that good enough? It's not exactly an everyday kind of name."</p><p>Daud picked it up, eyeing the terrible handwriting. "As good a lead as any. Good job."</p><p>Billie inclined her head, then paused, her eyes sliding to the side. "You don't… have any more about it? Who Delilah <em> is?" </em></p><p>"It might not be a Delilah. The ship could be the first step down a path that has nothing to do with the name."</p><p>Something flickered in the corner of his vision; her impatient dæmon, twitching unhappily at such a vague answer. Sat beside Kaikilia, he nudged at her; she hooked him with a paw and gave the top of his mink head a lick.</p><p>"We'll find out soon enough,” Daud went on “Be prepared to leave in an hour."</p><p>Billie inclined her head, then added "The Eversham house is on the way there, if we come out just past Clavering-"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"I don't think the buyer will raise it any more, he's already offered three times the original price-"</p><p>"We're not taking it."</p><p>"It would be easy."</p><p>
  <em> "Billie." </em>
</p><p>She shrugged, and glanced over at their dæmons. Reluctantly, her mink loped after her out of the room. Daud sighed through his nose, turning to lean on his desk and light a cigarette.</p><p>"Everyone thinks you're afraid."</p><p>"Let them," he stared empty-eyed down at his boots "If they know me that poorly."</p><p>"They know you perfectly well, but you're not acting like <em> you." </em></p><p>"People can change, can't they?"</p><p>"Those are fairy stories. They're for people who think they could love their dæmons if they were only a lion instead of a sheep."</p><p>"That's not what I-" he sighed down his nose. Without another word, his dæmon got up and flicked a back leg at him, leaping up the stairs to curl up in their bed.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> She was growing again; by the looks of things, this time she'd outgrow him, but for now it was a spurt of gangly, uncoordinated limbs, and she kept tripping, tumbling, messing up the transversals she'd been so thrilled to have the knack for before. A cigarette dangled from Daud's lips as he wound the bandage around her foot, and she tried to hide her winces. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Can I have a drag?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "No." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Her delinquent slouch deepened. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Next time you need to let off some steam, do it on the dummies, not a brick wall." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> She stuck her tongue out at him. On the floor beside where he knelt, her dæmon took the shape of a tiny, twitchy monkey, whose head moved like a bird's, and tried to pester Kaikilia's tail. She flicked it into his face, and caught him with a paw, but instead of an admonishing bat she drew him to her and began to lick his head. He sat quite placidly for it, although she nearly bowled him over with the force of her cleaning. Billie relented her bitter mood slightly, enough to say "I'm not bad at transversals." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I know you're not. You're just growing faster than your brain can keep up with." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "That's not real." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Why not?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> She shrugged. "Sounds fake." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "When you've attended the Academy, you can tell me what's fake." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Her eyes narrowed at him. "Rafe said you got kicked out." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I left. There's a difference." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Uh-huh." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Gai bared his teeth in a supplicating grin at Kaikilia, seeing as he wasn't likely to be able to dodge a nip. She just used her paw to hold him still and wash his face, until he squirmed and squeaked at the affront to his dignity. Daud tied off the bandage, propping Billie's foot up on the ratty cushion and box serving as a footrest. "You're staying here where I can keep an eye on you." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He got her some books to keep her busy, but it wasn't long before he could hear the fidgeting as he worked, and see her dæmon flitting forms in the corner, distracting her - no wonder she was making such slow progress with her reading. After a while she said "Daud?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Mm?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "When did your dæmon settle?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He looked up from his writing. "When I was sixteen." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I… don't know how old I am." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I doubt you're seventeen yet." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Should I be settled by now?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "No. There's no rule for it, it comes when it comes." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "But I want to know what Gai will be." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "You'll have your whole life for his settled form. Enjoy him as he is for now, someday it could be the last time he has wings. You won't know until it's over." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> She was holding him in her lap, stoat formed, his little head cocked to listen to the conversation. Daud could remember, before Kaikilia settled, perhaps several years where she had grown out of the rampant shifting of childhood, comfortable in the forms she knew she liked best, and only shifting past them when occasion required it. He could count the number of forms he had seen Gai take on two hands, and suspected they weren't far off. They had a liking for mustelids, which was hardly surprising - if there was one word he'd use for Billie, it was stubborn. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "What if he settles tomorrow," Billie said, rocking back in her chair with a poorly feigned air of innocence "And I've been stuck in here and wasted his last day?" </em>
</p><p><em> Daud lifted his eyebrows at her; she smiled, as sweetly as she could muster, holding Gai in both hands up under her chin. Daud pinched the bridge of his nose. "If I catch you swinging in the rafters with an injury </em> <b> <em>again,</em> </b> <em> you'll be out of training for a month." </em></p><p><em> "I would </em> <b> <em>never!"</em> </b> <em> She said, oh so earnestly, as her dæmon shimmered into a tiger so that she could use him as a crutch to hop out of the room. Beside Daud, Kaikilia laughed. </em></p><p>
  <em> "You're far too soft on her." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Me?" He demanded, watching them disappear around the corner and turning thoughtful. "If Gai did settle as a tiger, I can't say I would be that surprised." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "For her sake, I hope he doesn't. Can you imagine trying to go unnoticed with a tiger? She'd turn every head just walking down the street." She butted her head against his chin, until he relented, giving her a scratch behind an ear. "Whatever it is, I get the feeling she'll surprise us." </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Rothwild leered at Daud, his face still twitching with after-shock tremors. "Choke on your own <em> spit." </em></p><p>Daud had never had an interrogation so easy. He pulled the lever again, with one eye on the badger dæmon snarling and twisting at the foot of the chair in time with the electric spasms of her man. She was too afraid to bite him yet; but he knew what desperation did to the great taboo, and what it took for a dæmon to sink their teeth into the flesh of a human not their own. He had a feeling she would already have done it if it wasn't for his own dæmon, sat placidly on a counter at the far end of the room. She didn't even need to leave - just the unnatural distance between them would be enough to make Rothwild's skin crawl.</p><p>"Why Delilah?"</p><p>"Because of some sweetheart, how should I know! A haughty bitch who liked to paint, is that your type?"</p><p>"Who was it, then?"</p><p>"It's in any record you care to find, and I'd hate to rob a poor Serkonan orphan of the chance to practice his letters. I bet you only learnt once you got here, huh? They don't have schools for little rats in the slum your whore mother shat you out and left you in."</p><p>It was always easy to tell when a man was close to breaking. Daud jerked the lever, enough to make Rothwild tense up in fear but not to let more than a little flash of current through. "I'm a busy man." He barely needed more than a suggestion of moving his arm again to get the response he was looking for.</p><p>"Barrister Timsh, alright?" The dæmon howled, cowering behind Rothwild's legs. He reached out his fingers to her and she rubbed her face on his calf, mewling in pain.</p><p>"He sold the ship to me in a frenzy, wanted it gone, and the name changed. Wish I'd done it. He was afraid of her. Him, afraid of some <em> artist. </em> But he'd <em> given </em>her half his wealth and more - she must have the best muff in the Isles to be worth all that."</p><p><em> Or be a woman more terrifying than the Barrister is covetous. </em> Daud slammed down the lever, watching man and dæmon dance.</p><p>"Well?" Billie asked as he emerged from the meat locker a minute later.</p><p>"Barrister Timsh."</p><p>"He's overdue a visit. There's offal chutes down the corridor, by the way."</p><p>"I'll meet you out the front. Take Rothwild to that crate by the entrance, the 'live specimen' one." Daud handed her the key to the locker. "Put Rothwild in it. He should fit."</p><p>"I know where to find a saw if he doesn't."</p><p>His dæmon waited until they were working their way back to Aimes, her trotting step ahead of him and upright tail his familiar barometer for safety. She paused at a door. "What's waiting in Tyvia for Rothwild that's better than a quick death in his own chair?"</p><p>"That's his problem." He opened the door for her.</p><p>"You never did listen to the philosophy part of the Academy." She said dryly as she prowled through, sniffing the air and following the wall behind some boxes. In a moment she appeared out in the open, her tail showing the all clear</p><p>"That crate was prepared for a person." Daud kept a wary eye on their back as she led the way. "Maybe Aimes. He reaps what he sows."</p><p>"Or his clients recognise him and send him back. If he was selling her to a rural brothel, they're not likely to keep him."</p><p>"We'll see."</p><p>"I hope you'll be more efficient when he comes knocking." She paused, head ducking, whiskers bristling, but only for a moment; just a scurrying rat, or a too distant footstep. "I'll write you a receipt for what it costs us."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>She came through a window from wherever she'd loitered on the way home, appearing after he had already set Whalers to work scouting, inquiring, and investigating the new leads. Daud put his thoughts and suspicions to paper with it all still fresh in his mind, as he always did, to make sure nothing would be lost if something happened to him before the job was done. She watched him from the stairs.</p><p>"You know, they wouldn't carry on this wild goose chase if we died. They'd have more sense."</p><p>"Thomas would take it to the end."</p><p>"But you didn't make Thomas your lieutenant."</p><p>No, he didn't.</p><p>"You picked Billie because she knows when to tell you you're wrong."</p><p>"And when to back down."</p><p>"She's being <em> nice, </em> she thinks you're ill. She thinks the child was a step too far for you. But she's going to have to say something soon."</p><p>He scribbled, frowning, listening to the distant sounds of swords clashing as it echoed out through the hollow, decrepit spaces of Rudshore. Usually there would be bursts of laughter or song. He hadn't heard either in a while.</p><p>"You entrusted her with the wellbeing of all of them."</p><p>"Have you been talking about this with her?" He fixed his dæmon with a stubborn glower, his chin jutting. Her yellow eyes stared impassively back at him.</p><p>"And if I have?"</p><p>"Why?"</p><p><em> "You </em> won't listen."</p><p>She was his soul; he didn't need to speak for her to feel the flush of outrage that coloured his cheeks. Her ears went flat, and her lashing tail fluffed up before his eyes. She was out of the window again before he'd even taken a breath.</p><p>The light faded and he went to bed to lie and hold the thin pillow against his chest; sleep, like a wild animal, wouldn't be lured to where it did not rest easy, it did not like a lone heartbeat and only a half mind. He felt, on and off, the faint sensation of cold tiles and the sea breeze; the soothing safety of dark, windy alleys they knew and had made their own; her grief.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> He reached out to her through the bars, crying "Kiki! Come back!" as she flew in shrieking circles on swallows' wings, tearing his heart out with every swoop too far from him. A man came out into the courtyard, growling for Daud to shut his dæmon up, but she wouldn't listen to anyone, fluttering and screaming, tethered to the dark courtyard by the pull between their hearts. The man had to get a net. She was thrown into Daud's hands with a stern snarl of "Shut your little freak up, or I'll lock it in a box and throw it in the canal." Daud held her under the lumpy, stained pillow, sobbing for her to be quiet, while she tore at his hands and shrieked, and shrieked. He felt her struggling breaths against the fabric clinging around her mouth in his own lungs. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> The window was boarded up; she prowled the little basement room for days, stealing his sleep and his comfort as he lay in the little bed alone. She dug at the stone floor until her badger claws bled and his hands were sore and clumsy, or hammered at the boards with a woodpecker's beak until his head ached and the man came snarling. Daud reached out to her and she stalked away, her haunted eyes passing him over as if he wasn't there, to circle the room again, and again, and again, and again. He screamed at her, "Stop it, stop it!", stamping his feet, throwing his shoes at her, blind with tears. "You're making everything worse! Just stop it! I want to go home too, I want mother, I want Dion and not you!" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> She hid under a chair while he curled up in the bed with his back to her, remembering being small, sleeping safely under the fluffed feathers of his mother's dæmon like a little chick while the sharp beak nibbled through his hair.  </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Thalia Timsh took the sight of a dæmonless man better than Daud had ever seen anyone do it - still, she had a hand over her mouth when he turned away. He had no idea where his dæmon was. It was a pain to rely on a single set of eyes, but he'd manage; it was mostly just hassle to get the nobleman locked in one of the rotten buildings to explain his plan of having Timsh evicted, over the terrified mewling of his dæmon trying to hide under his coat. Rumours about Daud abounded, and many were fond of claiming he had no dæmon at all, or at least that she was locked in the Void in exchange for his powers; people loved to tell them behind drawn curtains on dark nights, but when it came to meeting him, they were never so brave. Daud had used to like the rumours. They made him into someone he wasn't, but who he wanted to be. They gave him power, the likes of which he hadn't known until chance and necessity got him on a boat to Dunwall.</p><p>Over time, as they became more outlandish, and as Daud found that it was possible to feel like a person and not like a yearning, raw, unfinished thing forever, the stories of a man who had never really existed meant less to him. Nowadays, all he appreciated about them was that no one left in Serkonos who had once known him would ever guess that they were about the child that escaped.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Parasite Skua." Billie supplied as Daud crouched by the open balcony and squinted through the walls of Timsh's house to the glowing yellow figures moving within. Dogs prowled alongside many of the guards, but a bird preened itself on a desk where a tall, thin figure sat writing. "Do you think he took it too much to heart?"</p><p>Her dæmon appeared at a doorway. "There's a shrine in here."</p><p>"A lot of heresy going on for a district like this." She noted, following Daud through into the soft purple glow of a back room. Gai snuffled about in his whipcrack way, snorting as dust got up his nose. Daud looked down reluctantly at the rune, half tempted not to bother - but only half. The lanterns seemed to dim as his hand neared the bone. "I've always wondered - what does he <em> smell </em>like?"</p><p>He glanced up at Billie, brows raised quizzically.</p><p>"Rotting flesh? Wild flowers? Does he ask you questions?" She wasn't looking at him, she was staring at the swathes of fabric sagging over the altar, snagged on its rough and splintered edges. She added, in a tone Daud hesitated to put words to, "I wonder when he'll speak to me?"</p><p>Instead of answering, he picked up the rune, the world going dark around him; colourless and waxy, the Outsider loomed through it, lit from nowhere in the pitch black.</p><p>"You're not known for your soft touch, Daud; it's funny, don't you think, that Rothwild can be the first to claim the Knife of Dunwall's mercy? Did the Empress change you? Or do you think this will help you dodge what's coming?" He leant down, so Daud could see the eyelashes lining his flat, black eyes and the creases of the bruised skin that sat sunken around them and showed the outline of his skull's sockets. "I know you, Daud, and everything you've seen. I don't think it was the Empress. I think it was little Emily Kaldwin. I think you saw yourself through her eyes, and for a moment you looked like someone else."</p><p>Daud recoiled. For a moment the Void shivered around him, threatening to fade like a dreamed fall jolting him awake - but the Outsider's hand had caught his bandolier, and he was suspended, hovering at the edge.</p><p>"One last lesson, for old time's sake; Delilah has never been to the places hidden in the world where dæmons can't go, like you have, and that should worry you. Where is <em> your </em> dæmon, Daud? Do you even know?"</p><p>He was let go, and he stumbled back into the musty, purple apartment, Billie still watching from the corner.</p><p>"You were in a daze. I hope it was enlightening."</p><p>She vanished, her dæmon a flash of dark fur around the corner of the doorway following her.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> He was thankful for the privacy. The witch had gone back inside her hut, leaving him to follow the winding trail through the bare forest, frost thick on the ground, crunching under foot. His dæmon kept her nerve well into the shadow of the everlasting pines, but as she sat in his arms he could feel her fur starting to stand on end. Her claws dug deeper into his coat. She could clearly feel it, with that sense that dæmons had, but he didn't know when it would happen, if he would be stopped by some barrier or if she would be pulled from his arms. She jumped out herself, at a place where the path was wide, and little smaller trails lead off to either side. All her fur fluffed up and her back arched, her pink tongue flicking out to lick her nose in agitation. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Is this it, then?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> She yowled low in her throat, staring down the path as if at something he couldn't see. He tried a step, but there was no great change. Her yowl rose. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "We know what's going to happen, let's just get it over with." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He took her lack of answer for agreement - it wasn't much further before the pull began. An invisible string was tied to his heart, and it had reached its limit. He knew it, they'd tested it as all children did, and felt it once by accident when he lost his footing climbing and plummeted away from her. It had been moments, a brief flash before she was with him again, but that had been enough for a lifetime. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> And yet, he pulled on it now, his tethered heart hammering as the sensation grew worse. The physical discomfort rose into something else, a grimness settling on his mind, a deep and dark unhappiness like a sudden cloud across the sun. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Daud!" Kaikilia had sunk to the hard ground, quivering. "Wait!" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He did, stopping and half turning. "If we just did it fast-" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "That won't help. No, don't come back." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I wasn't going to." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "You moved." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He snorted. The pull didn't lessen, throbbing on like a second pulse. She looked so small, so wrong on her own like that. She didn't belong anywhere but with him. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Don't." Her voice was strained. "Go, before you change your mind." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He took another step. Between his lungs, it tugged like a fish hook caught inside him, ripping open something that spilled and filled him with the kind of storm that made it hard to breathe. He had felt like this when he realised he'd lost his mother; when the people that took him made him grow his hair out where she had cut it as short as he'd asked; when he first came to Dunwall alone and lost and empty. He was choking on it, and the only thing in the world that could soothe so much hurt was his dæmon's fur on his face, in his hands, her purr rattling his bones. "Don't stop, Daud, you'll only make it worse." She whimpered. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> He grabbed a tree, gripping it hard enough to splinter the bark, shooting splinters under his nails. "Kiki-" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Just do it, we said we would." </em>
</p><p><b> <em>I don't want to leave you. </em> </b> <em> It bubbled up in his throat. He swallowed it down. He thought his heart was going to be ripped loose inside his chest, but he kept walking. The wretched sob that rose in his chest brought the hot blur of tears with it, and he brushed them roughly away with his sleeve. Her burbling yowl echoed between the trees, sending nearby birds into a chattering frenzy of alarm. </em></p><p>
  <em> At some point, he realised his own choked-down sobs were all he could hear - that he was alone, that he had left her behind. The pain was no less. He didn't know how long he would have to live for it to ever stop. </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Is that who you're looking for?" Billie appeared, tilting her head up at the marble figure, now fallen still. "Well. She's a bit of a bitch. And the artwork's hopeless."</p><p>Daud assumed she meant the paintings and not the flawless statue, which looked like it could have been a woman painted over to give the look of stone. Back in the position it had begun in, it looked down with a long-fingered hand pressed to its chest, a serenely haughty expression on its face, and the other hand raised in a fist for the form of the dæmon to be perched atop it. Without colour it could be hard to tell some birds apart, but this one had a crown, a little elegant tuft of feathers sticking up at the back of its unmistakably eagle head, and he remembered it, like he did much of what his mother had taught him. It had been known as one of those 'dæmon birds' perhaps as long as man had lived in the Isles, until Pandyssia began to be explored, and all those odd creatures that dæmons took the shape of were found to be true animals.</p><p>"I know you have your reasons."</p><p>He did not comment on her sigh- she disappeared anyway. He didn't see her again, except for one brief flash of a small, brown dæmon disappearing up a roof in the direction of the gate out of Timsh's compound. A few minutes later he came out of Timsh's basement with his arm shielding his nose and mouth and his eyes watering. With Timsh being dragged away, no one would notice the missing documents or keys, or know the bloody hands that had been among them.</p><p>Brigmore manor, the niece told him as he handed over the will. A vision at a seance where only the dead should be summoned - a vision of Delilah. "We saw her as if she was very far away, painting at an easel. Not a proper picture, just a name, slopping it in too much red paint over and over until it was illegible. It seemed like a dæmon's name, but I doubt it was hers; Delilah was many terrible things that shamed my uncle by association, but I never heard that her dæmon was female."</p><p>"What was the name?"</p><p>"Kaikilia. We spent drunken hours debating how to pronounce it, or I would have forgotten it."</p><p>"It's Cecilia with Ks. The Serkonan version."</p><p>"Oh. Waverly won then. I suppose it's probably common in Serkonos."</p><p>"It isn't."</p><p>He Blinked away before she could reply.</p><p>Billie was not at the sewer door when he got there. He found it unlocked. If Kaikilia had been there she could have sniffed and told him if Billie had been past, but as it was just him he was left to guess, so he headed home with his hand on the hilt of his sword.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Daud-" the relief that flooded him when Gai appeared the second he came in the gate was wiped away in an instant at the strained, panting breaths the mink was taking "We've been attacked- Overseers- they're looking for you, they want you alive- oh, <em> Billie-' </em>he broke into a whimper.</p><p>"Where is she?" Daud asked, past the growing thunder of his blood in his ears.</p><p>"She couldn't get past them but we had to warn you, she's not far but- Daud-!" His little body twisted, trembed, his voice breaking into high, raspy cries like rusty blades being dragged against each other. Daud held out his arm - Gai leapt at once, seizing his sleeve in teeth and strong paws. Daud Blinked rapid-fire up the crumbling floors that would have made an arduous climb for the dæmon on his own, wood sometimes giving under him in his haste. At the top, Gai dropped off him, limp with relief, for Daud to slam through the doors without pause. There were far too many for him to deal with quickly enough for stealth in so small a space, but he trusted; sure enough, Billie descended from the shadows, and to his surprise, he realised her ammunition was darts and not bolts. </p><p>The second it was over Gai was leaping into her arms to burrow under her hood at her neck, uttering his little unhappy cries. She shushed him, holding him tightly, but her hands were still trembling. Daud gave them a moment before he demanded the details.</p><p>"They're holding our remaining men, and their leader's set up a base in your chambers."</p><p>Remaining? Daud's lungs felt too tight in his chest. <em> Remaining? </em>"I want to know how the bastards found us." He rasped, a tremor in his voice. Silently, Billie disappeared.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>A great explosion of voice and snarling made Daud jump - with a curse, he launched himself up a wall to look down the other side at the enclosed courtyard hidden between towering buildings. The Overseers flailed wildly, hound dæmons snapping, a Whaler struggled on the ground while a net beside them squirmed - and a dark shape whipped across the ground, leaping between pursuing teeth and blades. Daud fell on them, using one to break his fall, firing off a dart at another, leaping out of the way of a third's wild swing. He easily knocked them down when their dæmon shrieked in pain so hard it made them stumble - a strike to their head and they ceased to struggle, the dæmon staggering around a few more moments before they collapsed too, long snout bloody from a clawed eye. Kaikilia had already moved on from it. She was pulling away the net, revealing the brightly-coloured snake belonging to Aubrey. Daud slit through the rope binding the man's wrists. "Thank you," he rasped, flinching as he stood with a hand on his side "They came from all directions, we didn't realise until those music boxes started. I saw- Shearwater's dead."</p><p><em> And many others, </em> but Daud didn't know if Aubrey had realised yet. He gestured to the rooftops. "Wait out of sight, come out <em> only on my signal, </em> understand?"</p><p>A stiff nod, as he bent to collect his dæmon, and he disappeared. It was almost silent then between the towering walls, between Daud and his dæmon, who wouldn't meet his eyes. She was standing by the net and looking down at it - so engrossed in it that it wasn't until his hands touched her that she realised he'd come over. She'd clawed at his sleeve before she noticed - for a moment they hovered awkwardly, her dangling in his hands as she stopped her struggles, him hesitating to see if she would tell him to drop her (most likely with her teeth). She seemed surprised by his soft sigh of "Kiki", and to find herself pressed to his face.</p><p>After a moment, he felt her tongue rasp his temple. He closed his eyes, murmuring "I'm sorry."</p><p>A paw touched his cheek to hold him to her a moment, which was all they had. The Overseer music still roiled in the distance - he let her up onto his shoulder, where she could ride with his Blinks as he followed the sound.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The bodies had been left where they were slaughtered, so he could guess, for the most part, who they were. Where once the following dæmon had made it easy to discern one masked figure from another, now they were just corpses, and their dæmons vanished into the Void.</p><p>Daud's blade felt heavy and noticeable on his belt, as if he wasn't used to wearing it. As if it jostled his leg with impatience, like a cooped-up dog. </p><p>The wide, white eyes of the whaler masks watched him approach. How many was he missing? They rarely gathered together all at once, what with patrols and jobs, but it seemed a paltry number even then. He'd find out, when they gathered the bodies. Right now he could hope some had fled or were patrolling in case of a second wave.</p><p>Kaikilia pressed up against his leg as Billie stepped forward from the crowd. Her dæmon, though- he stood behind her, his nose to the ground and his eyes averted, unmoving but for the heavy breaths that rocked his small body.</p><p>"It's done." She said, her voice carrying in Rudshore's deep quiet. "As you ordered. Thomas and Avdeyuk have the last of them bound and ready to be dealt with over there."</p><p>Daud had become aware of Kaikilia stepping away from him, of the tingling sensation that meant her tail was fluffing up. He didn't know why. "How did they find us?" He asked, not sure what the cold creeping in his stomach meant. Billie's voice changed. It wasn't the brisk lieutenant any more.</p><p>"It's my fault. I told Delilah where we were hidden. She wanted me to turn on you."</p><p>He barely more than whispered "You did this."</p><p>"But I can't go through with it."</p><p>A ripple in the air blasted him with a smell like crushed moss and sickly-sweet rot.</p><p>"Stupid girl." Delilah's shadow was cast over them, long and seeming to spread the same smell. The Whalers all shuffled with uncomfortable surprise, wings flaring and low hisses whispering, but there was no sound of drawn sword, because Daud hadn't moved for his. All the dæmon eyes were on the eagle wheeling above Delilah's head. "All you had to do was cut his throat!"</p><p>"He deserves better! I was an idiot to listen to you!"</p><p>Of all people, Delilah? Who found who? How long was Daud scouring for answers with Billie playing ignorant beside him, trickling him just enough information to keep him unaware?</p><p>How long since he'd stopped cross-referencing whatever information Billie brought, like he did as a matter of course for everyone else?</p><p>"So that's your choice then." Delilah's musical voice purred low - at Billie's feet, Gai hid his face behind her ankles, not from Daud but from Delilah. "Daud. Her betrayal would have been the sweetest, but either way the Brigmore Witches will be your end! You should have forgotten my name the day you heard it!"</p><p>"I think it was always understood between us," Billie said quietly, drawing off her mask as she turned to meet Daud's eyes "That I'd see when it was time for me to take your place. I guess I wasn't right about either of us." She was drawing her sword, sliding down into a kneel and offering it up.</p><p>Daud floated alone as if in the Void, the blade before him. Where was his dæmon? He hadn't noticed her leave and yet he couldn't feel her. Despite himself, he glanced down, finding her only a foot away, staring at Gai. It was like she wasn't there at all. As if she wasn't his. She didn't look at him, or come to him, or seem at all to feel his silent pleas.</p><p>He knew what he <em> should </em> do, as Knife of Dunwall; he knew what he could never do, no matter what it meant. He closed Billie's open hand back over the hilt of her blade, and thought, <em> this is it. This is the last time I see her. </em></p><p>Gai keened, looking from Daud to Kaikilia with the naïve hope that Billie knew better than to express.</p><p>He put his hand on Billie's, closing her fingers back over the sword's hilt. All the eyes were on him; but his near whisper was only for her. "Go. Leave. Get out of my sight."</p><p>She gave him one last look. The briefest touch of a sad smile that fluttered the corners of her lips but not her eyes said <em> 'don't worry, I'll be okay'. </em> If she hadn't scooped the still keening Gai to her chest and disappeared the moment after, the thick knot in Daud's throat would have burst. The empty place where she had been was easier to blunt it against, and hold it down.</p><p>"Touching and pathetic." Delilah sneered, her voice rising as Daud did not look at her. "If I see either of you again I'll tear out your stone cold hearts and walk in your skin!"</p><p>With a sharp cry from her dæmon, she was gone too. Nobody moved - except Kaikilia, leaping and clawing her way up to where the witch had been. She stood there scouring the buildings around; Daud had no inkling which of the women she was looking for.</p><p>A voice roused him but did not make the ground feel more solid under his feet. "Your orders?" Someone asked, not daring to raise their voice. Daud didn't reply. He walked away, only followed by eyes, making it into his office. The air stank with Abbey incense, the sound smothered itself between thick drapes, swords and guns were scattered on the floor, enough blood to mean someone would not make it through the night. He collapsed to the ground, back against his desk. All his joints moved like levers half rusted shut, but it wasn't the hard wear - only exhaustion, his soul wrung out, his head empty.</p><p>She came eventually, her ragged ears pinned back and her black head low, tail lashing with barely suppressed rage. He could feel her stare - but his own was unfocused, gazing at the dark sky through the holes in the roof, and he couldn't tear it away.</p><p>"This is your fault."</p><p>He sucked in a breath.</p><p>"This is all because of you. If you hadn't- you ruined it. You ruined everything we built."</p><p>"I know."</p><p>"You haven't known anything for months, you're going mad."</p><p>"That's what you think?" He thought he could hear someone crying, the noise wafting through the window with the limp, grey dusk.</p><p>"It's what <em> everyone </em> thinks. You've thrown everything into the river for <em> what? </em> For that Empress? You feel sorry for <em> her?" </em></p><p>"It's not that. It's the blood-"</p><p>"What <em> blood? </em> The blood that goes into her silks when children are mashed to pieces in the looms because the owners won't turn them off and waste fifteen minutes to protect them? The blood of Billie's friend spread out in the gutter while the man that bashed her brains in was sent home wreathed in flowers and mourners? Who did that? Whose guards chased Billie half to death and saluted the man that murdered a child in the street? What <em> blood, </em> Daud!"</p><p>The bone-deep, mind-deep tiredness weighed down his tongue. He could only stare at his hands, mute.</p><p>"The only blood on <em> your </em> hands is theirs out there, the ones <em> you </em> are supposed to be responsible for. Billie would never have done anything like this if you hadn't fallen to pieces!"</p><p>"Wouldn't she? Didn't I teach her how to kill?"</p><p>"Didn't you give her a family when she didn't know what that meant? And then threaten to rip it all apart and act like it had all been wrong? You <em> taught </em>her to take care of what we built and she tried, by the Void, she did her best, when she's still barely grown up and half as experienced as you. Don't blame her that she couldn't win."</p><p>He shook his head. Although he could see the way she bristled, he couldn't feel it, that ghostly prickling sensation on skin that was hers but also his. "She changed her mind."</p><p>"I wish she hadn't. They all deserve better than to be led into the Void by you."</p><p>"Where else am I taking them with this?" He flexed his hand, the Mark beneath his glove rushing cold as if it knew it was being spoken of. "This is the only thing that has ever justified the lives we've taken, and I can't find a reason it's any better an excuse than a noble bloodline. Why is it our place to-"</p><p>"You're a coward, Daud." Kaikilia hissed. "You're a coward and I'm glad mother's dead. You'd break her heart."</p><p>He stared at her with eyes wide, the colour rushing out of his face. She stayed long enough to see it, to make sure he watched her leave. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> The kid was so skinny Daud wondered how he'd been able to follow along that far, but his desperation showed on the bleeding scrapes on his knees and his splintered fingernails. For a moment Daud saw him reconsider, now that the Knife of Dunwall's attention was on him, now that he was close; but then he set his stance a little firmer, and Daud knew he wouldn't run. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "What's your name?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Billie." He wasn't afraid to meet Daud's eyes. His dæmon, shaped like a wolverine, hugged close to his ankles with its back arched and all its fur on end. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "You shouldn't follow strangers." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "How'd you do it?" He set his jaw, trying to look tough. The cut of his shirt, tattered as it was, blood-stained, was for a woman's figure. "You killed them and disappeared." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "If I had disappeared, you wouldn't have been able to follow me." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "You disappeared temporarily." He wrinkled his nose, voice dripping patronisingly, and Daud couldn't help a little huff of laughter. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I'm a witch." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Oh." It deflated him slightly, to Daud's surprise. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "Is that disappointing?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I wanted to learn." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "You can learn to be a witch." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Dæmon and child fixed him with suspicion and the flicker of hope in the wolverine's little pricked ears. "Really? You didn't just get born as one?" </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "No. I've taught it to people before. It has nothing to do with birth." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Kaikilia came down from her place on his shoulder at this, stretched, and squinted in a cat's friendly way at the wolverine. It was far bigger than her, but nervously eeked forwards, straining its neck out to touch noses with her like a stretched spring. </em>
</p><p><em> At once, Daud felt her shock. </em> <b> <em>The dæmon's a boy.</em> </b> <em> His breath almost caught. </em></p><p>
  <em> "Do I have to pay to get taught?" The child was asking, watching him, still waiting for the catch. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "No, you just have to learn. I don't waste my time on people who don't take it seriously." </em>
</p><p>
  <em> "I would, I would take it seriously." </em>
</p><p><em> Kaikilia gave him a look. </em> <b> <em>You know we're taking them in.</em> </b> <em> He did. It wouldn't be long, as skinny as that, before their strength failed them. "Then you're in. You'll be the only girl at the moment, if you mind that." </em></p><p>
  <em> It took a moment for it to register on her face, but then her dæmon changed, its rough fur turning soft, body shrinking, until it was a sleek little ermine entwining with her ankles in a sudden burst of enthusiasm. All Billie said was "Yeah," but Daud could see the smile, smothered at the corners of her mouth - that disbelieving kind of glow that went like a slow-rising bubble in the chest. It must have been that alone that gave her the energy to follow him - an easier route this time - all the way home.  </em>
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